The Oscars went on tonight in all the glamorous spectacle the ceremony is known for, thanks to the dissipation of the large storm cloud over Hollywood known as the writers strike. Luckily award season’s biggest night was spared the fate of the Golden Globes, which more or less went the way of Old Yeller.

Tonight all the doubt is behind us and Hollywood is looking back to normal. That’s good news for Joel and Ethan Coen, who took home the award for directing. Their film “No Country for Old Men” earned the top honor, best picture, as well as awards for best adapted screenplay and the no-surprise supporting actor win for Javier Bardem.

Jon Stewart added the humor one would expect from him as host of the show. Stewart joked about the alternate, montage heavy Oscars ceremony that was being planned in case the writers strike was not resolved, introducing montages of binoculars and periscopes and bad dreams in film.

The most heart-warming moments of the night came when the little guys won. Diablo Cody bawled through her acceptance speech for best original screenplay for “Juno.” I was pulling for Ellen Page, who played the title character, to win best actress but the prize went to one of the front-runners, Marion Cotillard (”La Vie en Rose”.)

Another underdog, the song “Falling Slowly” from the film “Once,” the low-low budget film that pretty much spread around by word of mouth, won in the best original song category. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the adorable couple from the film, delivered an acceptance speech that captured the idea that a small film, made in a short amount of time with a low budget can make it to Hollywood’s biggest stage.

After Hansard finished speaking Irglova moved up to the microphone but was drowned out by music cueing them offstage, before she even got a word in. Following the commercial break, Irglova was brought back onstage to make her own speech, this time uninterrupted. Even though it pointed out an imperfection in the show, bringing Irglova back onstage and letting her speak earns points for the Academy and the show’s producers in my book.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 12:48 am and is filed under Movies, Hollywood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.